robertsonmartin

Hey,

Making plans for a new-build in the future and electrics / earthing always seems to be a hot topic in DIY forum. I recently heard about an earthing system that I hadn't heard of before and it looks like it doesn't get used much outside ofthe US  Military / commercial builds.

It is called Ufer Earthing which was named after the guy who came up with it and it uses the steel re-bar foundations to provide the earthing (along with a conventional earth rod for double the protection). Apparently works great in dry ground / sandy soil scenarios where it is difficult to achieve a low resistance reading earth with a normal earth rod.

Here is a link to an interesting read - http://www.psihq.com...ad/ufergrnd.htm ; http://wiki.diyfaq.o...e=Ufer_Earthing

Seems like a good earthing system to use on a newbuild. Wonder if there are any disadvantages / reasons not to use in Thailand?

We have a Fortuner (3.0L Diesel) just coming up to 2 years old. It doesn't do much mileage as it normally stays on Phuket and doesn't venture very far from home. Anyway, because it's coming up to its 2 year birthday toyota called and told the missus she can book a service (cost parts only, no labour charge) before the 2-years  is up.

So we turn up at Toyota Service Centre today for the appointment, the car has 17,350 Km on it and when I look down at the ticket for the service it shows that they are going to do a 40,000Km service on it for 7800 Baht +. Now I'm no car mechanic but do know that you don't do a 40K service when its only got 17K on the clock. So I said no way, the wife starts getting pissed off (with me), the sevice rep will only talk in thai and is blanking me when i'm trying to find out exactly whats in a 40K service. I told the missus if she really wants a service now then get the 20K one. Toyota says cannot because you had the 20K service last year (when I was out of town and the car only had 10K on it), so we left.

Apparently (found out when the wife had calmed down a bit) that they want you to get a service every 6 months regardless of the mileage and because ours is coming up to 2 years then it should have had it 1K, 10K, 20K already and because these services are already in the computer then they cannot do them again?!? It makes no sense to me but the 40K service is a pretty major service and whats the point if there is only 17Km on the clock.

Ok, rant over. We'll probably go back sometime in the next two years and 13K more km for the 30K service.

Anyone else with an expericence like this?

Hey,

Seeing as I'm a bit lazy and probably not only me...I just wondered if the forum drop down menu could also be placed at the top of the page to save having to scroll to the bottom of the page whenever we need to navigate to another forum.

Heres hoping...

Hi All,

I'm up to speed with the theory of balancing the pool water, what the correct levels should be, how to treat it etc but have a little query.

My pool has a Compupool CPSC series salt chlorinator system so I don't manually add any chlorine medium. The chlorine level in the water is always pretty good hanging around the 2.8 to 3.0 ppm level. The pH level rises slowly over the course of approx 10 days from 7.2 to 7.7 when I will then add a couple of litres of HCl which brings it back down to 7.2 and the the cycle starts again. This apparently is normal for a salt chlorinator system for the pH to balance out at pH 7.8 according to my chlorinator manual *.

Now, the Total Alkilinity, is a strange one. It will normally hang around the 60ppm limit which I know is well below the 100 - 120ppm level that it should be if I do nothing to it at all. If I add Sodium Bicarb to bring it up to the correct level of 120ppm, this throws out the pH a little and then I need to add HCl to bring this back down to 7.2. This in turn affects the TA level by reducing it by 20ppm. The TA then gradually drops over the course of about 2-3 weeks from 100ppm back down to 60ppm.

Water hardness levels are fine, and the pool water always look sparkling clean. Water temp approx 28.5 - 30 degC.

I have read that as long as the chlorine and pH levels are stable (they are in my case) there isn't much point in messing around with the TA and that I should just leave this one alone at 60ppm. If the TA is brought up to 100ppm this doesn't stop the pH from slowly rising.

Any comments?

M.



* Chlorinator manual states - pH produced by the Chlorinator is close to neutral pH. However, other factors usually cause the pH of the pool water to rise. Therefore, the pH in a pool chlorinated by thr Chlorinator tends to stabilize at 7.8. This is within national standards. If the pool pH rises above 7.8 have a pool professional test to see if other factors such as high Calcium Hardness or Total Alkilinity are the cause and then balance accordingly.

Hi All,


Anyone seen a countertop deep fat fryer in any shop on their travels? These are pretty much available in most countries but haven't seen them here in Phuket yet. The ones I talk about look similar to a rice cooker.


Missing my homemade chips.


Cheers,

M.